I”m not actually attending E3 this year, but it tests my theory that you should be able to experience these giant media events from home if they”re even remotely going to be worth the time and the money they spend to throw them, and E3 is the best example of how to do that correctly. Not only do they live-stream every bit of the presentation, but they release all the new exclusive visual materials that are brought to the event online as soon as they premiere at E3. Sure, there are things that are exclusive to the event, but there”s no video game fan who is going to end this week frustrated that they didn”t get to see anything good.
My kids are just hitting the age where they are aware of E3 as an event, and they are absolutely out of their minds crazy about gaming. We game together the same way we watch movies together, and we talk a lot about what it is that keeps us playing things or that makes us drop something quickly to return to an old favorite. We”re also having to start to talk about the emotional side of gaming as the boys get better and better at playing EA”s NBA or FIFA games. They can get so invested in the outcome that I am halfway convinced I”m going to have an incident of hooliganism occur in my living room at some point.
As soon as EA”s presentation went online, the boys watched each of the trailers with me, and Titanfall 2 caused some serious mania, both for the single-player and the multi-player trailers.
Check out the single-player one:
And now here”s the multi-player one:
The first game was what I would consider the gateway game for both Toshi and Allen, the moment they were finally allowed to play a first-person shooter of any kind. There”s new footage from Cuphead, an indie title that we”ve been looking forward to for a while now because of its beautiful throwback animation style…
… and a trailer for Watch Dogs 2, which is a follow-up to a much-hyped but disappointing first title in a series by Ubisoft, a company that has made a lot of games I have liked quite a bit…
… as well as a terrific tease for Mass Effect: Andromeda, which looks like a major overhaul of a property that got painted into a narrative corner while pushing to create something that felt massive and full of potential.
Allen is manic for FIFA, and the notion of EA adding a story mode to FIFA seemed to really excite him. He immediately had questions about customization immediately, and that”s something I”ve noticed with kids his age. In games like this, if you give them a chance to personalize something, they will run with it. It”s one of his favorite parts of a game.
We watched the video about all the various games that EA is developing centered around the Star Wars franchise, and it”s exciting to get a glimpse of the one that some people have described as the Uncharted type Star Wars game. EA has big plans for the title overall, and I”m glad to see we”ll be getting lots of different types of Star Wars games, not just Battlefront.
We”re an XBox One family right now. I had a PS3 for the last generation, then switched over the weekend that the original Titanfall was released. Since then, I”ve been very happy overall with the decision, but Playstation”s working to make me regret the choice, and this year, it finally happened… I saw a trailer that made me realize I”m going to end up buying a PS4 at some point. While I loved Uncharted, simply buying the last chapter in an ongoing franchise wasn”t enough to tip me over, and there were no other exclusives that made me feel like I was really missing out.
Then this happened.
Holy cow, I love Spider-Man games. Spider-Man 2 is maybe my favorite superhero game of all time, and it”s because it managed to really convey the experience of being Spider-Man, of having those powers and being able to web-swing around a city. It was so much fun and ended up being one of the rare games that I started replaying as soon as I finished it the first time. If they are seriously turning Insomniac Games, a fantastic company, loose on the Spider-Man franchise, then I”m in. I will make the jump to PS4 for that, and I can”t wait. And if I can also finally play this after 25 years of hype…
… then even better. Especially since that means I can use the Playstation VR and play this.
I wonder how strenuous it”s going to be to play Batman in virtual reality. Are they going to kill an army of nerds who try to replicate a brutal fight with a gang of thugs? Will I be one of those nerds? Farpoint looks like another crazy VR application:
And it certainly feels like space travel and exploration is a big theme in some of the upcoming games. If I”m going to get a PS4, then I”m damn sure playing No Man”s Sky. It”s been delayed until August, so they didn”t bring any new E3 footage. However, they didn”t need to. I know if I get the machine, I”ll get that game. E3 is more about telling us things we didn”t already know. For example, I”ve never heard of Detroit: Become Human, but daaaaaaaaaaaaaamn…
That looks awesome, and so does Horizon Zero Dawn.
Over on XBox, we”ll get our giant monster game in the form of Scalebound…
… while PS4 made a surprisingly emotional bid for relevance for God Of War, and I was impressed by the way they”ve gone with this particular incarnation of the franchise.
Overall, E3 has plenty more to debut this week, and it”s already clear that gaming is offering up a non-stop stream of big-ticket items, even without a discussion about Project: Scorpio, the next giant step in the console wars, but I may have just folded and finally admitted that I can”t be brand-loyal in a world with this many amazing distractions.
Damn you, Playstation, and damn you, Spider-Man. I”ll see you soon.